So there I was minding my own business, watching television. Happy to put some of the thoughts that have been uppermost in my mind on the back burner for a while. When...
Channel 4 showed a trailer for a program it is putting on next week (Thursday @ 9pm) called The Great Global Warming Swindle
'Hmmm, interesting' I thought 'I'll do some Googling and see if I can find some background info on the people who made it and who are in it.
I do things like that. Many of us have the tools now. Sadly, few of us use them.
And, strike me down with a feather, whose name did I see listed in the first half dozen search results. Oh yes
Heeeeeeeeeeeres's Georgie...
The most entertaining part of the article goes something like...
Some chance. A company called Wag TV is currently completing a 90-minute documentary for Channel 4 called The Great Global Warming Swindle. Manmade climate change, the channel tells us, is "a lie ... the biggest scam of modern times. The truth is that global warming is a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry: created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists; supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding; and propped up by complicit politicians and the media ... The fact is that CO2 has no proven link to global temperatures ... solar activity is far more likely to be the culprit."
So it's the same old conspiracy theory we've been hearing from the denial industry for 10 years, and it carries as much scientific weight as the contention that the twin towers were brought down by missiles.
I haven't seen the program yet and, even though its thesis coincides with some personal thoughts I have on the subject of Man Made Climate Change, there's nothing to stop it being a pile of crap. Just because someone or something appears to share your views that doesn't stop it, by accident or design, being riddled with flaws (cf. Loose Change cf. George Monbiot)
But whatever the actual quality of the program, George's response to the very thought of the airing of a show sceptical about Man Made Climate Change is 100% pure Monbiot
There he is again...
- Using the denial word - equating holding a different view to his own on the subject of climate change with being a Nazi
- Identifying anyone who disagrees with him as being a conspiracy theorist (and therefore either a moron infected with a mental virus or in the pay of the 'Denial Industry', or both)
In Monbiot World the label Conspiracy Theorist serves the same function as a subroutine in computer programming. Once you've written it you can just keep calling it again and again...
gosub conspiracy theorists
print "yah di yah ya moronic blah blah nazi blah ... insane blah blah mental disease blah bla etc etc"
return
George must be so pissed off that burning disbelievers and blasphemers isn't carbon neutral
"Recant and let your souls be saved..."And what a flexible group the "Conspiracy Theorists" are
- sometimes they think Bush and the PNAC crowd are behind 9/11
- other times they side with Bush and the PNAC crowd in denying Man Made Climate Change
Well, they're nothing if not versatile
A Four Man Cell of Conspiracy Theorists ... conspiringAnd the number of these heretics who conspire (oh, the irony) against George and his beloved movements is multiplying. Why else would George be so preoccupied with them?
Look out George they're there ... and there .. and underneath that ... and in your dreams ... Oh God they're everywhere ... aaaaaaaaahhh!!!
George Monbiot ... in a hat.
11 comments:
Wow Stef - you're betraying your 80s programming heritage there! Other than callable routines having been called "functions" since the mid 1980s, the biggest two problems with that code are:
1) In trad BASIC, subroutines had line-numbered. In more modern BASIC you could have labels, or if you gave a variable the number of the line on which the subroutine occurred in a more trad basic, you'd get away with it. You have no line numbers and no label, so the code would give you an error when run.
2) You fall straight into the subroutine. That means you would have a return to nowhere once it executed the second time. This too would result in an error.
I would suggest a more modern construct. The exception handler. In C++, this is epitomosed by the "try/catch" construct. Put a "try" block around every argument ever constructed. If it doesn't concur with George's, the exception "catch" handler would stop the argument with a devastating attack on the integrity of the person disagreeing.
I realise this is incredibly anal.
And you should realise that by definition, that's what all programmers are.
On a separate (but also hugely anal) note, the image you head your post with is taken from the end scene of The Godfather part II. The quote you head your post with is taken from the pre "diabetic stroke" (been there) scene in The Godfather Part III.
/ busted
... twice
BTW Was I the only person to go into a period of extended public mourning after first seeing TGF3?
George Hamilton as a Consiglieri?!
Eli Wallach as a Sicilian Don!!? Hyman Roth maybe but a Sicilian?!
And how much acid would you have to take beforehand to believe that Andy Garcia would want to shag Sofia Coppola?
It's all coming back to me as I type. Oh, the trauma of it all...
... am warming to thought of writing blogs and newspaper articles in gwbasic
I know Part III had holes, but I still loved it.
I didn't mind the don, because I didn't recognise him, but George Hamilton was a truly crap consiglieri.
My biggest problem with the film was Sofia Coppola. Absolute crap.
George's intemperate reaction shows how thin skinned the opinionist elite can be when people won't do what they're told.
Me, I am heartened by the spread of this virus, I've yet to show any of the tell tale signs (unexpected appearance of toothbrush moustache, brooding over alien probings, inability to reason etc) but I'm sure they'll come and I'll join my new pals who will all be reassuringly similar, even if they eyes do roll and they drool a bit.
The only thing I miss is people like george don't take me as seriously as they used to.
1. Blame Conspiracy Theories
2.
3. Profit
And how much acid would you have to take beforehand to believe that Andy Garcia would want to shag Sofia Coppola?
I don't think enough acid exists in the world for this contrivance...
On the other hand I didn't think Hamilton was as bad as you all make him out to be.
I visited Dollywood once and went to a dinner show that I thought had George Hamilton as the top act. It turned out to be George Hamilton IV - big difference
In fairness, George wasn't bad in TGF3 as such - just miscast. He tries his best but there's one scene where I can swear he's thinking 'WTF am I doing here'
There again, I think his entire career has been based miscasting
From George's wikibio
n 1977, Hamilton, who would be considered "metrosexual" by today's standards, took on a challenging role. He was cast as the gritty, street hardened vigilante, Frank Castle in the ill-fated live action adaptation of Marvel Comics' The Punisher (TV Series). This series only lasted two episodes, as the image of Hamilton in a black jumpsuit emblazoned with a skull just was not what Marvel CEO Stan Lee was looking for.
also...
On March 12, 2007, Hamilton will be auditioning in a not-for-air episode of The Price is Right to take over for the retiring Bob Barker.
And if that doesn't work they could always use Robert Duvall
God Knows who dreamt up the inspired bollocks about Mr H playing The Punisher?! It wasn't you was it? ;)
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